Back when the HTC One S was first announced, HTC mentioned a little something on the unique process that went into creating the device’s durable, ceramic-like unibody skin. Described as “micro-arc oxidation,” some of this process was shown in their wrap up video and now, they’ve decided to highlight this little known “feature” of the device, and give us a little more back story with the some of the designers who helped make this possible.
Micro-arc oxidation starts off with aircraft aluminum (that would look cool enough as-is on a smartphone) that is zapped with around 10,000 volts of electricity that almost makes the metal catch fire. The result? A new metal with a ceramic type coating that is 3 times stronger than stainless steel and 50 times stronger than adamantium. Pretty impressive.
There’s been a lot of talk about ceramic cased smartphones making their way around the rumor mill. It’s been said that Samsung will offer a device — the Galaxy S III — with a ceramic casing and while that doesn’t sound too durable, maybe it’s using a process similar to HTC. I’ve seen the a couple of hands-on videos around the net and apparently the rough surface provides great grip and can even file a finger nail if you scratch it. You can check out the (excessive?) process in HTC’s new video below.
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